The Minister for Health, Ms Mary Harney, got a stirring introduction from new IMO president Dr Paula Gilvarry. It went: “I would like to introduce the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, on this beautiful day in Killarney.”
Dr Gilvarry was being true, I suppose, to that age-old credo of decorum: if you can’t say anything nice, say nothing at all.
If consultants hoped to hear a word of conciliation from the Minister, they got none whatsoever, which made the prolonged applause following the speech all the more curious.
Minister Harney spoke of teamwork and the public good, and perhaps it would have looked bad to be silent.
Still, this is the same stuff they’ve been hearing for years.
Ms Harney made it very clear: it’s not about inputs (staff and money), it’s about outputs (changing the way the medical profession works to maximize health investment).
She said Sweden does it.
She made it clear, as well, that the current investment in health is never going to increase (in terms of proportion of total Government spend) under her watch. One in four euro that the Government spends is spent on health. Now that teachers want more, and more has to be spent on infrastructure and other things, doctors are simply going to have to find innovative ways to get around underfunded, understaffed working conditions.
About Greg Baxter
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